With or Without You
by UESider84
Summary: Future-Fic: The old order changes and gives way to new. Dany/Jon. One-Shot.


The first rays of the summer sun entered the royal bedroom and cast gleaming shadows. Underneath the bright red velvet canopy was a body that had been completely wrapped in blankets except for the shoulders and the head. The head was royal and rounded, the eyes violet, and the hair silver. Yet the Targaryen queen was no longer the beautiful girl she had been when she had married the Dothraki khalasar and returned to her homeland riding a giant red dragon.

She was a wizened woman of ninety-four with dark circles underneath her eyes and her skin creased into a thousand wrinkles. Arthritis had turned her hands into claws which bent into themselves and her legs had become so wobbly with age that she could barely walk. Where once she had possessed a strong voice, she only spoke in whispers that could only be heard by those in her immediate vicinity.

As the woman turned over in the bed, a tall man entered through one of the side doors. Tall, but stooped. His jet black hair turned into grey. He hobbled with a rosewood cane at his side and stopped every four or five steps to catch his breath. Over his eyes, he wore violet spectacles that protected him from the daylight which was now blinding him as once the snow had seemed to when he was Lord Commander of The Wall.

In the seven kingdoms, they sang songs about Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, her three dragons, and Jon's beautiful sisters. On thousands of golden coins, the royal mint had imprinted their profiles and the scribes had written thousands of pages about them. For twenty years, however, nobody had seen them. They remembered the dark-haired Prince Consort and the beautiful Queen, but they couldn't see the hunchbacked, nearly blind old man and the dying woman.

Jon walked slowly towards Dany's bed and sat down at her side. She turned her head towards him and smiled, "My sun and stars."

"Moon of my life."

He placed his hand gingerly on the blankets so that she could it place in hers.

Their eyes met as they had seventy years ago when she was an orphan trying to right wrongs and he was an inexperienced young man trying to command forces that had mutinied on him.

He remembered that he had seen her suffering on that day and that she had undoubtedly seen his.

He patted her hand and bent down to kiss it only to have her pull it away.

"Tell me a story, Jon," she said as she propped herself up against the pillows.

"You know I'm no good at stories, Your Grace," he laughed.

"Then tell me something else."

"There's nothing more to say."

"It's true what they said about you, Jon Snow," Dany laughed.

"That I'm a man of few words," he completed her sentence with a grin.

He stroked her hand with small circles and she continued smiling.

"Are the children coming to say goodbye?" she said suddenly."

"Rhaegar is here. Arya and Tyrion arrived this morning."

"And Jorah?"

Jon swallowed hard. Jorah had died ten years ago as 1020th Commander of The Wall.

"He's still at The Wall," Jon lied.

"And Robb?"

"I told you…"

"Never mind," Dany shook her head. "I don't need to know."

Jon sighed. Of their seven children, only three were still living.

"Don't worry," Dany said quietly sensing his disquiet. "When you go, you'll find me. Now, bring me my other children."

"Your Grace, no dragon will fit in your bedchamber."

"I didn't mean those," her whisper was regal, "bring me the eggs."

He hobbled towards the door and asked one of the guards to bring him one of the dozen stone eggs that he had commissioned for Dany when she demanded to see her children and her dragons weren't allowed inside the Red Keep.

"Here," Jon said after several minutes.

Dany kissed it and handed it back.

"When Drogo died," she stared at the wall listlessly, "I thought that I would die."

"But you didn't, Your Grace."

"No. I lived to a great old age, protected the realm, saw my children and their children's children."

"Yes," Jon grinned recalling the little Targaryen boys and girls that ran through the halls of The Red Keep on their grandmother's and grandfather's name days. "We have much to be thankful for, Dany. Rhaegar is the finest king the Seven Kingdoms have ever had and Arya and Tyrion will remain at his side to advise him as Lord Tyrion and my sister did the same for you."

"And Jorah?" Dany had returned to their youngest son. The one that looked most like his father. The one they couldn't rein in until they sent him as an adolescent to the restored Wall.

"Jorah," Jon fumbled. "He'll be fine."

"And Robb and Quentyn and Meera?" Her tone was rising as she remembered her other dead children.

"They… They live, Your Grace," he lied again. "They simply couldn't come."

The sun had reached mid-day and the bees had begun to buzz in the gardens below their bedchamber. The voices of thousands of people mingled with the sound in Jon's ears. On the day of their coronation as they had stood on one of the balconies and greeted the people, they had hailed them with Lord Tyrion as the dragon's three heads. After Dany died, they would cheer for Rhaegar and then for Viserys, Rhaegar's eldest son, and whoever would succeed him.

Three loud knocks announced the arrival of their surviving children. Crown Prince Rhaegar was the spitting image of his mother, but possessed his father's height and his broad shoulders. Princess Arya and her twin brother Tyrion had their mother's slight height, but their father's hair and eyes as well as their paternal grandmother's Stark temperament. The former had married one of Sansa's sons and had spent her most of her life at Winterfell, while the latter was his brother's Hand just like his namesake had been for his mother.

The four figures gathered around the bedside and watched as their mother and wife drifted off to sleep. They did not weep. They did not tear their clothes nor cry out. They merely kissed her hands and asked for her final blessing.

To each of them, she managed to whisper a few words of advice. She told Rhaegar to treat his subjects equally and to make no distinctions between lords and commoners. She advised Arya to take Jon to Winterfell where he could rest and asked her to be less stringent when it came to her son's household expenses. She admonished Tyrion to look after his siblings, their children, and their grandchildren and to protect the realm.

As the sunlight began to fade and the children went to keep vigil in their own rooms, Jon once again found himself alone with the woman he loved.

She tried to sleep, but she found herself coughing repeatedly as she had for the last month. Jon asked for a physician who held a handkerchief over her nose filled with herbal remedies. Dany breathed in and began coughing again. She coughed for hours, her face wincing in pain.

"There's nothing more we can do," the master told Jon and his children as they stood outside the bedroom door. "Your Graces, it will only be a matter of time before she goes. Have you said your goodbyes?"

Everyone nodded except Jon.

"Then, Your Grace," the old man bowed his head to the ruler. "It is your turn."

With a heavy heart, Jon hobbled back into the bedroom and sat down on the same chair he had occupied before.

Dany was at peace, her violet eyes glowing with a renewed vigor. "I will see Drogo and Rhaego again," she whispered.

Jon leant over and kissed her forehead as she closed her eyes for the last time.

"My sun and stars."

"Moon of my life."

* * *

_A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated._


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